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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Facebook adds video calling to Messenger

With instant messaging and
voice calls offered by Facebook’s Messenger it was almost inevitably that the
social network would add video calls from your mobile into the mix.

And it has gone and done
just that. The app has made the video-calling feature available to users in the
UK, US and a host of other countries around the world.

The service will work over
both mobile and WiFi connections. More regions and countries will be added in
the coming months.

Head of Product for
Messenger, Stan Chudnovsky, in a blog post, said that users can quickly start a
video call from any conversation with just one tap.

“If you’re messaging with
someone and realize that words just aren’t enough, you can simply choose the
video icon in the top right corner of the screen and start a video call right
from within an existing Messenger conversation,” he added.

Video calling on Facebook is
nothing new though. The social network rolled out desktop-based video calling
in partnership with Skype in 2011, but has since then built its own video call
service.

The service poses a serious
challenger to Skype, FaceTime Google Hangouts. Calls can be made from an iOS
device to an Android one and vice versa. Since rolling out voice calls in the
Messenger app last year, around 10 per cent of all mobile calls are now made
using the service, according to Facebook itself.

Only last week did
Facebook-owned WhatsApp introduce voice calls for the iOS version of its app.